Northern Brown Snakes are Adorable

Northern Brown Snakes are Adorable

August 21, 2014

Northern brown snakes are adorable. Some of you are saying, “no way.” But they are. It’s their tininess mostly. On average, when I find a northern brown snake, also known as a DeKay’s snake, they are about the size of a pencil. I’ve found worms that are larger.

Northern brown snakes are commonly found all around Cleveland Metroparks. They hang out in the forests, near edges and in fields. Turn over a log or a stone in one of these places and you may find a northern brown snake hiding. We place snake boards out to increase the chances that we’ll find some snakes to show people during programs. A snake board is simply a piece of exterior-grade plywood that is placed in a somewhat sunny location. The board soaks up the sun and snakes are attracted to the safe warm spot to hang out. Lift it up and you’re likely to find a snake.

As a bonus for the snakes, there are worms, insects, and slugs that like to hang out under snake boards, too. Conveniently these are all satisfactory meals for a northern brown snake. When we find a snake under a snake board, we normally show it to the group of curious people we are hiking with and then gently let it go back under the board. (We are also rewarded with a dose of musk {a.k.a. really stinky snake poo} for our interruption.) Last week however, we found a northern brown snake that caught our attention. And since our annual day of celebrating reptiles, Snakes, Turtles and Fun is coming up (September 23from 4-8 p.m. in South Chagrin Reservation), we decided to keep her for a short time. We will of course release her right where she was found in a few days.

Her? Yes, I think so. I’d have to do an internal exam to be sure (I’m not going to), but I’m pretty confident that the snake we found is a female. She’s huge! The length for a northern brown snake, measuring in at 13 inches is about as long as I’ve ever seen. She’s also quite a bit thicker than I would expect her to be the rest of the year. This time of year, it would be normal for a female northern brown snake to be gravid, or carrying babies inside her. And a gravid female would be likely to seek out the warmth and safety of a snake board. So, how cool is that? We likely found a gravid northern brown snake that could give birth to a dozen or two itty-bitty little snakes any day now.

I’ll happily announce on this blog and on Facebook when our snake gives birth, if she should do that while she’s staying with us. For now, here are some photos of some newborn northern brown snakes that we had a couple of years ago. It’s a challenge to catch them enough tiny insects to keep them fed, so we won’t hold on to them for long. But I sure hope that they’ll be here in time to make an appearance at Snakes, Turtles and Fun! I hope to meet you there when you stop by to see if we’ve been rewarded with these tiny little gems.